Protein binding to the non-coding regions of mRNAs is relatively well characterized and its functionality has been described in many examples. New results obtained by high-throughput methods indicate that binding to the coding sequence (CDS) by RNA-b...
Gene silencing via non-coding RNA, such as siRNA and miRNA, can occur at the transcriptional, post-transcriptional, and translational stages of expression. Transcriptional gene silencing (TGS) involving the RNAi machinery generally occurs through DNA...
Gene expression or gene regulation studies often assume one gene expresses one mRNA. However, contrary to the conventional idea, a single gene in mammalian cells can express multiple transcript variants translated into several different proteins. The...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are a class of endogenous small non-coding RNAs that regulate target gene expression in many eukaryotes. MiRNAs are essential for post-transcriptional regulation, influencing various biological functions, including oocyte growth an...
The Argonaute (AGO) and the Trinucleotide Repeat Containing 6 (TNRC6) family proteins are the core components of the mammalian microRNA-induced silencing complex (miRISC), the machinery that mediates microRNA function in the cytoplasm. The cytoplasmi...
A significant proportion of mammalian genomes corresponds to genes that transcribe long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs). Throughout the last decade, the number of studies concerning the roles played by lncRNAs in different biological processes has increase...
The translation of mRNAs plays a critical role in the regulation of gene expression and therefore, in the regulation of cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis. Unrestricted initiation of translation causes malignant transformation and play...
A key factor in the successful infection of a mammalian host by Leishmania parasites is their conversion from extracellular motile promastigotes into intracellular amastigotes. We discuss the physical and chemical triggers that induce this conversion...
Post-transcriptional control of gene expression is mediated by RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) and small non-coding RNAs (e.g., microRNAs) that bind to distinct elements in their mRNA targets. Here, we review recent examples describing the synergistic an...
Protein encoding genes constitute a small fraction of mammalian genomes. In addition to the protein coding genes, there are other functional units within the genome that are transcribed, but not translated into protein, the so called non-coding RNAs....
The emerging data indicates that non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) epresent more than the “junk sequences” of the genome. Both miRNAs and long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are involved in fundamental biological processes, and their deregulation may l...
The mammalian genome is pervasively transcribed and the functional significance of many long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) transcripts are gradually being elucidated. Metastasis Associated Lung Adenocarcinoma Transcript 1 (MALAT1) is one of the most well-s...
Leishmaniasis represents a serious health problem worldwide and drug resistance is a growing concern. Leishmania parasites use unusual mechanisms to control their gene expression. In contrast to many other species, they do not have transcriptional re...
Fertilization is a very complex biological process that requires the perfect cooperation between two highly specialized cells: the male and female gametes. The oocyte provides the physical space where this process takes place, most of the energetic n...
Eukaryotic organisms have a posttranscriptional/translational regulation system for the control of translational efficiency. RNA binding proteins (RBPs) have been known to control target genes. One type of protein, Pumilio (Pum)/Puf family RNA bindin...
The oocyte faces a particular challenge in terms of gene regulation. When oocytes resume meiosis at the end of the growth phase and prior to ovulation, the condensed chromatin state prevents the transcription of genes as they are required. Transcript...
To control gene expression, plants use the post-transcriptional/translational regulation system, which plays important roles in development and biotic and abiotic responses. Some RNA-binding proteins (RBPs) are known to regulate target genes via dire...
microRNAs are post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression that have been shown to be central players in the establishment of cellular programs, often acting as switches that control the choice between proliferation and differentiation during d...
The development of mammalian skeletal muscle is a highly complex process involving multiple molecular interactions. As a prevalent RNA modification, N6-methyladenosine (m6A) regulates the expression of target genes to affect mammalian development. Ne...
In the last years it has become increasingly clear that the mammalian transcriptome is highly complex and includes a large number of small non-coding RNAs (sncRNAs) and long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs). Here we review the biogenesis pathways of the thre...
Advancements in genomics, bioinformatics, and genome editing have uncovered new dimensions in gene regulation. Post-transcriptional modifications by the alternative splicing of mRNA transcripts are critical regulatory mechanisms of mammalian gene exp...
Ribosomal proteins (RPs) are mostly derived from the energy-consuming enzyme families such as ATP-dependent RNA helicases, AAA-ATPases, GTPases and kinases, and are important structural components of the ribosome, which is a supramolecular ribonucleo...
Astrocytes, one of the predominant types of glial cells, function as both supportive and metabolic cells for the brain. Among mammalian tissues, the highest levels of p21Ras protein are detected in the brain. Here, we investigated the expression of K...
Post-transcriptional processing, involving cleavage of precursor messenger RNA (pre mRNA), and further incorporation of poly(A) tail to the 3' end is a key step in the expression of genetic information. Alternative polyadenylation (APA) serves as an...
Transcriptome complexity is emerging as an unprecedented and fascinating domain, especially by high-throughput sequencing technologies that have unveiled a plethora of new non-coding RNA biotypes. This review covers antisense long non-coding RNAs, i....
Small regulatory RNAs (sRNAs) are now widely recognized for their role in the post-transcriptional regulation of bacterial virulence and growth. We have previously demonstrated the biogenesis and differential expression of several sRNAs in Rickettsia...
Heat stress is one of the most severe challenges faced in livestock production in summer. Alternative splicing as an important post-transcriptional regulation is rarely studied in heat-stressed animals. Here, we performed and analyzed RNA-sequencing...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are potent post-transcriptional regulators of gene expression. In mammalian cells, miRNAs typically suppress mRNA stability and/or translation through partial complementarity with target mRNAs. Each miRNA can regulate a wide range...
The recent emergence of multiple technologies for modifying gene structure has revolutionized mammalian biomedical research and enhanced the promises of gene therapy. Over the past decade, RNA interference (RNAi) based technologies widely dominated v...
RNA interference (RNAi) is a post-transcriptional gene-silencing process that occurs in many eukaryotic organisms upon intracellular exposure to double-stranded RNA. Argonaute 2 (Ago2) protein is the catalytic engine of mammalian RNAi. It contains a...
Mounting evidence points to a role of the circadian clock in the temporal regulation of post-transcriptional processes in mammals, including alternative splicing (AS). In this study, we carried out a computational analysis of circadian and ultradian...
Mammalian genomes encode tens of thousands of long-noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), which are capable of interactions with DNA, RNA and protein molecules, thereby enabling a variety of transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulatory activities. Striking...
Nanos RNA-binding proteins are critical factors of germline development throughout the animal kingdom and their dysfunction causes infertility. During evolution, mammalian Nanos paralogues adopted divergent roles in germ cell biology. However, the mo...
The mammalian brain is made up of billions of neurons and supporting cells (glial cells), intricately connected. Molecular perturbations often lead to neurodegeneration by progressive loss of structure and malfunction of neurons, including their deat...
Characterizing the mechanisms underlying follicle development in the ovary is crucial to understanding female fertility and is an area of increasing research interest. The RNA binding protein Musashi is essential for post-transcriptional regulation o...
Micro ribonucleic acids (microRNAs or miRNAs) form a distinct subtype of non-coding RNA and are widely recognized as one of the most significant gene expression regulators in mammalian cells. Mechanistically, the regulation occurs through microRNA bi...
MicroRNAs (miRNAs), a class of small non-coding RNA molecules, play important roles in gene expressions at transcriptional and post-transcriptional stages in mammalian brain. So far, a growing number of porcine miRNAs and their function have been ide...
Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are a new type of regulators that play important roles in various cellular processes, including cell growth, differentiation, survival, and apoptosis. ncRNAs, including small non-coding RNAs (e.g., microRNAs, small interferin...
Nonsense-mediated mRNA decay (NMD) is a highly conserved post-transcriptional gene expression regulatory mechanism in eukaryotic cells. NMD eliminates aberrant mRNAs with premature termination codons to surveil transcriptome integrity. Furthermore, N...
MicroRNAs are 18–22 nucleotides long, non-coding RNAs that bind transcripts with complementary sequences leading to either mRNA degradation or translational suppression. However, the inherent differences in preferred mode of miRNA regulation among ce...
In this review, we highlight information on microRNA (miRNA) identification and functional characterization in the beef for muscle and carcass composition traits, with an emphasis on Qinchuan beef cattle, and discuss the current challenges and future...
Mammalian SWI/SNF (SWitch/Sucrose Non-Fermentable) complexes are ATP-dependent chromatin remodelers whose subunits have emerged among the most frequently mutated genes in cancer. Studying SWI/SNF function in cancer cell line models has unveiled vulne...
Myocardial injury causes death to cardiomyocytes and leads to heart failure. The adult mammalian heart has very limited regenerative capacity. However, the heart from early postnatal mammals and from adult lower vertebrates can fully regenerate after...
Hundreds of thousands of people die each year as a result of sudden cardiac death, and many are due to heart rhythm disorders. One of the major causes of these arrhythmic events is Brugada syndrome, a cardiac channelopathy that results in abnormal ca...
Recent evidence suggests that testosterone deficiency can dramatically decrease the quality of sperm. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are conserved mediators of post-transcriptional gene regulation in eukaryotes. However, the systemic regulation and function of m...
Cottonseed contains many bioactive molecules including plant polyphenols. Cottonseed value might be increased by providing high-value bioactive polyphenols for improving nutrition and health. However, there was a lack of molecular evidence for cotton...
Recent studies suggest that short pentraxins in fish might serve as biomarkers for not only bacterial infections, as in higher vertebrates including humans, but also for viral ones. These fish orthologs of mammalian short pentraxins are currently att...
RNA acts as an immunostimulatory molecule in the innate immune system to activate nucleic acid sensors. It functions as an intermediate, conveying genetic information to control inflammatory responses. A key mechanism for RNA sensing is discriminatin...
Although thousands of mammalian long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported in the last decade, their functional annotation remains limited. A wet-lab approach to detect functions of a novel lncRNA usually includes its knockdown followed by RNA...
Melanosomes are specialized membrane-bound organelles where melanin is synthesized and stored. The levels of melanin can be effectively reduced by inhibiting melanin synthesis or promoting melanosome degradation via autophagy. Ceramide, a key compone...
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